Deus Ex Diaries Part Six

This is my ongoing exploration of the Deus Ex Universe, in preparation for when Mankind Divided arrives later this year. Whether you’re a newcomer or an old-goer, I hope to make this something you can read along with and enjoy. We continue on with Deus Ex.

Waking after deserting my brother and getting a severe arse-kicking, I found myself in a Majestic 12 cell - them being the ones able to tell my bosses what to do. A voice in my head named Daedalus helped me escape. Now all I had to do was find my stuff, then Paul’s body.

I made my way to the armoury, dodging/murdering several MJ12 troops and one MiB (Man in Black). It was tough going, especially as MiBs explode when they die… In the second section I was met by the security robots’ big cousins, the military robots. If I thought the security ones were like ED-209, then the military ones couldn’t be more like it if it tried.

I wasn't hiding, I was lying in wait...

I managed to avoid them by literally walking behind one of them, then snuck into the armoury with its single guard. He was easily dispatched and I raided the place, making out like a walking army. Shotguns, assault rifles, pistols, grenades — and an experimental weapon, the plasma rifle. Tucking that safely under my leather trenchcoat, I went back the way I had come to find Paul’s body.

He slows down whilst it's out, yet it doesn't mess with the cut of his coat...

Along the way I murdered plenty of guards, but the scientists I decided to leave alone. They weren’t trying to kill me, just being mean to me with words. I didn’t have the ammo to waste on insecurity, so I just let free the Greasels.

The Greasels were in a cell of some sort, I assumed, because as soon as I hacked the system and unlocked it, they began to attack. Now, I had hoped they would attack everyone. Not so, as I found after being attacked by several of them and eventually coming across one stood near another scientist and distinctly not killing him.

Lots of detail in this game

I unlocked more doors and eventually found Paul in a lab, near a room with two very large beasts of some description inside. They were green on my crosshairs, so I didn’t try to provoke them. After all, I’m not the monster I think they are.

Oh yes, we deal with deep thoughts in this series of diaries.

With the data transmitted to Tracer Tong by Daedalus, I was cleared to leave the facility, so I headed to the door and punched in the code, heading out: into the UNATCO headquarters!

Turns out the detention block which had been closed off to me before was where I was being held. Probably should have guessed, since it was UNATCO who managed to capture me...

Daedalus warned that I might meet some people I used to work with, like Jaime Reyes and Alex Jacobson. So of course I went straight to them to have a chat, whilst avoiding (and for once NOT murdering) the troops. Both of them were shocked at the treatment of both of the Denton boys, and wanted to leave. I made JC tell Jaime to stay in UNATCO, but he outright told Alex to meet up with Tracer Tong in Hong Kong when I got there. It also turned out to not be Alex posing as Daedalus, as JC suspected.

"Nice things don't happen to me, I need a reason!"

I decided to stop by Mr Manderley’s office to confront him. I managed to catch him in the middle of a chat with a holographic Walton Simons. Of course, Simons taunted me with the knowledge that my killswitch had been activated and I would be dead in 23 hours (meaning my escape, capture and second escape had taken less than an hour!), but JC doubted it. Of course, Daedalus had already told me that Tracer Tong would use the information from Paul to deactivate the killswitch.

"Hah, caught you!"

Manderley, in a fit of knowing-his-life-was-over-itis, then got a gun out and began taking shots at me. I was tempted to kill him, but decided to not take any chances and ran for it. Alex had already given me the key for the front door, and I managed to make it without killing any UNATCO troops. Until the front door reception, where I blasted him like he was Ironhide and I was Megatron in Transformers The Movie. As I opened the doors, Gunther Hermann radioed to tell me that he was going to kill me — little change there.

Outside, Jock the helicopter pilot was already in the UNATCO stealth helicopter and ready to take me to Hong Kong. Of course, there was also a Majestic 12 base there and they would be looking for us, but why worry?

That’s right, because it’s the UNATCO stealth helicopter and you’re flying it near their base which you know about. So we wind up landing at the “secret” Majestic 12 base and unable to leave until I disable whatever flight controls they have… This is ignoring the fact that the helicopter made a 16 hour flight (don’t get me started on that), leaving me with only seven hours before the killswitch kills me...